Tom Kloza, chief analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, thinks of North America as a "privileged continent" because it has multiple sources of energy, which is a kind of inoculation from the violence in Iraq and its 2.6 million barrels a day of oil production.

Even though traders are watching Iraq closely since rebels started to threaten the elected Iraqi government on June 10, Kloza said he doubts its oil exports would be affected.

Still, Americans are paying more at the pump for gasoline than what they usually pay in June when prices settle down between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

Travel season is here, demand is usually up and now prices are, about six cents per gallon on average in Texas, said Doug Shupe, spokesman for AAA Texas, which tracks prices across the state.

Nationally, prices are averaging $3.67 a gallon, or about seven cents a gallon higher than last year at this time.

In Texas, prices are up eight cents a gallon to a statewide average of $3.50 a gallon and in Beaumont, an average price per gallon is $3.42, AAA said, or about five cents higher than a year ago.

Kloza said production in the United States is about 3 million barrels more per day than it was in February 2012 when Libyans overthrew Moammar Khadafy. The coup cut off about 2 million barrels of export from Libya, mostly to southern Europe and prices spiked upward because there was little extra oil to replace it with.

Kloza said he expects United States producers to add another 3 million barrels per day to domestic production by 2020, insulating the U.S. even further from Middle East volatility.

"We use very little Middle Eastern oil now," he said. "We'll use less and less as time goes on because our production will rise."

World oil prices are about $115 per barrel, but U.S. oil sells for between $100 to $110. Canadian oil is even cheaper, discounted as if for export into the United States at about $90 a barrel, Kloza said.

If Iraqi oil were somehow to be lost, and Kloza said he doesn't think it will be, it won't affect U.S. prices very much.

"This is a real boom here," he said. "This is more of a worry for Europe and Asia."

U.S. refineries are going full out, he said. The only other worry is whether a tropical storm emerges this season and causes some disruption in supply, he said.

"Outside that, I don't think we'll have any price spike," he said.

Shupe said people still should think about fuel efficiency, particularly in areas where they can have a real impact, such as lightening the loads they carry. Empty out the vehicle of extraneous stuff, he said. Inflate your tires properly and combine trips to cut down on fuel use, Shupe suggested.